ISLAMABAD: The Water Resource Accountability in Pakistan (WRAP) Programme, funded by the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) and implemented by Oxford Policy Management (OPM), convened a one-day workshop to advance the institutionalisation and scale-up of reforms emerging from the Catalytic Fund (CF-WRAP) pilot projects.
The workshop brought together eight CF-WRAP grantee organisations, representatives from relevant federal and provincial government departments, Planning & Development Departments, and technical experts to review progress and identify concrete pathways for embedding proven innovations into public systems, with Rizwan Mehboob, Technical Lead OPM CF-WRAP, calling the gathering “a haven for ideas to be exchanged and solidify the work towards scalability and institutionalisation of the pilots,” said a press release.
CF-WRAP pilots, currently under implementation across Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Gilgit-Baltistan, and at the federal level, address priority challenges in water governance, Nature-based Solutions (NbS), and anticipatory action.
These pilots have been co-designed with government counterparts and demonstrate strong potential for scale through public sector planning, budgeting, and regulatory frameworks.
Discussions focused on four key areas: a stocktake of progress on each CF-WRAP pilot; a review of PC-1 development supported through targeted technical assistance; exploration of non-PC-1 pathways for reform scaling and institutionalisation; and agreement on next steps, responsibilities, and timelines.
WRAP, through OPM’s technical leadership, has mobilised specialised planning and institutionalisation experts to support up to eight CF-WRAP projects in developing robust, bankable PC-1s and facilitating their adoption by relevant government entities. This support is designed to enable government-led adoption of proven pilots through existing public planning, budgeting, and institutional mechanisms.
The workshop concluded with a shared commitment to transition successful pilots from demonstration to mainstream adoption within public systems, reinforcing WRAP’s role as a catalyst for sustainable, government-led reform.
As a keynote speaker, Team Leader OPM CF-WRAP, Usman Kirmani, expressed his gratitude to stakeholders from the government, FCDO, grantees, and OPM for gathering to hear powerful stories of resilience that will shape these groundbreaking initiatives as they institutionalise and scale CF-WRAP pilots.
